The NSA is hoovering up packets at AT&T switching stations and now they want to listen to some encrypted phone calls.
Here's my interpretation of the offer. They have no intention of paying for an attack. If somebody attempts to claim the reward they will say "Oh, no thanks, we don't really want your attack" and then rediscover the attack themselves.
The overwhelming majority of "persons of interest" using Skype are on Windows, but substitute any other OS and the equation is no different: you're suggesting that the NSA would pay billions of dollars for a break in a protocol that runs exclusively on endpoints that the NSA can get a shell on at will.
The NSA is hoovering up packets at AT&T switching stations and now they want to listen to some encrypted phone calls.
Here's my interpretation of the offer. They have no intention of paying for an attack. If somebody attempts to claim the reward they will say "Oh, no thanks, we don't really want your attack" and then rediscover the attack themselves.